Spell Against Pen
by Lysana
Summary: The pen is mightier than the sword, they say. But Dustfinger will set his magic against ANY weapon that's being used for cruelty. When he discovers fanfiction and sees the viciousness of some people's fics, he'll pay anything to protect all the worlds.


Spell Against Pen

Summary: The pen is mightier than the sword, they say. But Dustfinger will set his magic against ANY weapon that's being used for cruelty. When he discovers fanfiction and sees the viciousness of some people's fics, he'll pay anything to protect all the worlds.

Rating: K+

Characters: Dustfinger & Meggie

Genres: Drama/Friendship

* * *

Author's Note: No, I don't believe that fanfiction - or any fiction - actually causes things to really happen, and I don't believe that fictional worlds really exist. But why even pretend to cause suffering and pain in the name of humor? Abusive fanfiction isn't funny, even if people laugh at it.

Now, a totally different note: As happens so often with me and new story settings, I've heard of Inkheart, gotten a few spoilers, read a fanfic or two, and then thought up an idea for a fic already. I never feel inclined to wait until I get to read a trilogy or something when inspiration strikes, so I just go ahead and write from the little I know. So, no doubt, there are probably a lot of things in this fic that are very AU. I don't mind that, and I hope you don't either.

* * *

_Yugi slipped on a banana peel,_ Dustfinger read in disbelief. The childish narration went on, predictably, to issue an open insult. _Stupid Yugi!_ the writer had seen fit to proclaim in glee.

Dustfinger closed the Internet page and sat back in his chair, having seen more than enough. He stared at the screen in front of him, with its frozen landscape-image and collection of 'icons' representing the things this odd computer machine could be made to do. Meggie had introduced him to the device some weeks ago, and he had quickly seen that it was an amazing and powerful tool. But like any tool, it seemed, this one could also be used for evil.

Several hours earlier, Dustfinger had felt almost ready to drown in confusion. Now, he believed he understood what he had been seeing, and his earlier perplexed feeling had been replaced by intense anger. He didn't know who Yugi was, or any of the other people he'd been reading about today, but it didn't matter. _No one,_ he thought in outrage,_ deserves to be pointlessly humiliated or hurt for a laugh._

The concept of fanfiction - stories written by ordinary people of this world, often children, to expand the stories that were already recorded in books - had been startling enough when Dustfinger had first encountered it a few days ago. Words had such power in the hands of this world's people; why did some of them wield that power with such a terrifying lack of respect?

Not that he objected to most of the fanfiction he'd seen; only some of the stories held this kind of evil.

This morning, he had stumbled across a story whose author called it a 'hatefic.' Reading it, he had found his mind bombarded with descriptions of mockery and wantonly inflicted pain. The idea that anyone would create even one such story had jarred him terribly. But in the hours since that shocking moment, he had seen dozens of cruel and spiteful stories: 'torture' fics, 'bashing' fics, and very many that were chillingly just called 'humor'. All of them seemed to be motivated by someone's wish to hurt the characters involved; and slipping on banana peels was only where it started. The violence and degradation that were shown in some of these stories could hardly be called anything but torture - and yet, that was exactly what some of these vicious authors _did _laughingly call it.

_These stories must be destroyed,_ Dustfinger thought with a resolve like steel. Now, he also needed a plan to carry out that resolve, just as real steel needed flint to spark the beginnings of a fire.

_If I was in my own world,_ he thought, _I would create a spell to shatter all these awful words and undo the hurt they cause. And,_ he realized, _to prevent any more such violent attacks from ever being written. But I am in a world where magic is very hard to find._

Dustfinger had, very recently, managed to find and claim the very last copy of _Inkheart_, the book that led to his own world. He had not yet figured out a way to open that route and follow it home, but he was beginning to feel that his mind was very close to giving him that answer. Maybe he could return home, then cast the needed spell from there?

"No," he said aloud. "It would not reach across the worlds."

"What wouldn't?" a voice inquired. It was Meggie, the young girl in whose home he was a guest this summer. She was poking her head around the doorway into the room where Dustfinger sat in front of the computer. She was a good friend, and definitely determined to do all she could to make him feel at home in her world. But this was not really his home.

Dustfinger swung his chair around on its clever rolling mechanism and smiled at her. "Never mind," he said. "I'm just trying to work out some magic, that's all."

"To get home?" Meggie inquired eagerly. "Oh, are you close yet? I hope so -" She broke off, her eyes round and solemn. "But I'll miss you. Still, your friends at home must be missing you more. I've only known you a little while..." Meggie shook her head. "Sorry, I'm talking too much. Are you really finding a way back into your world?"

"Maybe," Dustfinger answered. "Or maybe not quite yet. I need to try and figure out just what to do. Don't worry about it, okay? I already promised I'll say goodbye if I can."

"Okay," Meggie said. With a cheerful wave, even though she still looked a little sad at the idea of him leaving, she whisked back out of the room and down the hall.

_What a sweet child,_ Dustfinger thought. Then he went back to considering the problem of how to stop the terrible abuse that he'd discovered. _These 'torture fics' and so forth; they must be combatted from __this__ world. Yet how do I create such magic, here?_

Then a sudden weight dropped onto his heart. The thought made him feel cold, most of all because of the feeling that it _was_, indeed, the answer to what he must do.

Dustfinger knew there was one way, something so terrible that he had never wanted to consider it - and had never dreamed of a reason to. Now, though, the terrible magnitude of this situation demanded nothing less than this final drastic choice.

_The last book. If I burn my last road home, sacrifice my own hope for the sake of this spell, that will release the power I need._

* * *

Carrying the last, battered copy of _Inkheart_ tucked under his arm, Dustfinger went out to the back yard of Megan's home. Standing there near the woven-wire back fence, glinting dull red and russet brown in the bright afternoon sun, was a rusted steel barrel of the size that might be used for shipping goods on an ocean-going vessel. This barrel, though, was open at the top and mostly filled with an assortment of small branches, leaves, and other plant materials that Meggie and her father had trimmed from their yard. They called it a burn barrel; which was exactly what Dustfinger would be using it for now.

He reached into the barrel and arranged the wood and leaves to burn well and strongly. Then he opened a second, smaller barrel that stood nearby. With the dull, black-dusted metal scoop that rested inside, he lifted out some small black coals and poured them skillfully into the burn barrel on top of the framework of branches.

Dustfinger carefully closed the coal barrel. After only a second in which his hand refused to move, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small book of matches. The faded cover read 'Steak N Soda': it was the name of a local restaurant, which gave out the matchbooks as a way to get people's attention and induce them to remember its name and location so they would spend money there.

With a quick, practiced movement, Dustfinger tore out one of the matches and struck it against the back of the matchbook, holding the whole arrangement just above the fuel waiting in the barrel. A tiny, bright orange flame appeared, twinkling between his thumb and finger. Reaching down the last little bit of distance, he transferred the heedless, uncommunicative little fire into a stack of kindling-leaves.

_Will my family, my friends, ever forgive me for this?_ he wondered suddenly, as the fire grew to claim more and more of its fuel. But as he thought about it, he knew that they could never be angry if they knew. _I would be proud of any one of them who made this choice. They would certainly also be proud of me. They would want me to do this. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt!_

Dustfinger stared down into the fire for several minutes, watching until he saw that it had grown strong enough. The flames themselves were much smaller now than a moment before, but the coals were glowing a fierce bright red. They were what held most of the force of the fire now. With a sharp feeling of pain in his spirit, Dustfinger knew that it was time for him to make the sacrifice.

His hands shaking, Dustfinger lowered the precious book into the flames. He almost didn't feel the physical pain as he made himself set it down among the coals. Instead, a great deal of his awareness was taken up by the quick thudding of his heart.

Grimly, the fire mage held his mind's focus on the spell and all the reasons for it. He clenched his hands once around the edges of the book, then suddenly pulled them away and left it resting on the red coals.

"My friend," he said softly to the fire, "please do this for me, even though you don't know me."

For the first time in this world, the fire answered. Leaping up in twisting curls, it coiled around the book and billowed out to wrap Dustfinger in a spinning embrace. As the flames gusted up to twice his height, they didn't burn him. Moving too quickly to cause pain, they only brushed him with soothing warmth and flooded his vision with a welcoming orange-gold light. It was all so familiar that he felt tears of joy and fulfilled longing coming to his eyes. At the same time, he felt the reality of his sacrifice all the more poignantly.

_And the greater the sacrifice,_ he thought, _the stronger the spell._ Without looking, he felt and almost saw the sudden crumbling implosion within the fire as the book collapsed into a rectangular heap of black ashes. Closing his eyes, Dustfinger threw his arms up toward the sky and began the spell.

* * *

"Dustfinger?"

Meggie's concerned young voice brought him back to awareness of himself some time later. He knew it must be later, because the sun had almost gone down. It was in that breathless between-place where it had passed the tops of the horizon's trees, but hadn't yet slipped beneath the boundary of the earth.

"It's beautiful, just like when the sun sets behind the trees in _my_ world," Dustfinger said without turning around. "See how the shy, mischievous beams peek and sparkle from between the branches?"

"Mm," Meggie agreed quietly. They stood and watched until the sun's rays traveled out of sight and the sky turned a cool, soothing deep blue. Then Dustfinger turned to face his young friend, his sad eyes coming to rest on Meggie's innocent face.

"Dustfinger, are you all right?" she asked. "You look as though something's changed."

_How quickly she puts her finger on the truth!_ he thought. He took a few slow breaths, fighting to see past the images of his family that appeared in front of his mind's eye, then he gave Meggie a quiet smile. "It has," he said, "but for the better. It's just hard to get used to. Meggie... I gave up my chance to ever return home, but I've helped thousands of people in other worlds."

Briefly he explained what he had done, and why. When he had finished speaking, Meggie practically jumped him with a comforting hug. It was, the surprised fire mage thought, exactly what he needed. He put his arms around the young girl and squeezed her tightly in return, feeling the great comfort of her friendship.

"You're a hero," Meggie said warmly, then stepped back and held out a hand to him. "Come on, let's go inside. You've given up a lot, but there's still so much joy waiting for you in _this_ world! I just know it."

A sudden burst of new hope appeared in Dustfinger's soul at her words. _Meggie has always been very wise,_ he thought. _And I do know that my loved ones at home would have chosen this sacrifice as surely as I did._

With a surprisingly clear mind, Dustfinger took the child's hand and walked alongside her, to step wholeheartedly into his new life.


End file.
